“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Don't give up. Come on. Just keep on trying. Don't frown. Smile! You can do it. If you just try a little harder. I've got a feeling this whole thing might just work out okay. You'll see. Don't give up. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Now I want to see all of you get up on your feet and look like you're enjoying yourselves. Come on, let's see some of that famous ‘Pennsylvania optimism’ I've heard so much about..." [Excerpted from the recently discovered preamble to Gettysburg Address]”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Women are the only people I am afraid of who I never thought would hurt me”
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Abraham Lincoln
“Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
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Abraham Lincoln
“You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“I was a little cross.I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Believing everyone is dangerous, but believing nobody is more dangerous.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
“Abraham Lincoln was asked by an aide about the church service he had attended. Lincoln responded that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent and the topic relevant. The aide said, “Then it was a good service?”
Lincoln responded, “No.” The aide protested,
“But, Mr. President, you said that the minister was inspired, interesting, well-prepared, eloquent, and that the topic was relevant.”
“Yes,” replied Lincoln, “but he didn’t challenge us to do any great thing.”
―
Abraham Lincoln
